Despite the global downturn, some companies are still thriving and are managing to grow their earnings.

One such example is Apple. All US public companies have to report their earnings every quarter. This puts a lot of pressure on management to increase profits every three months. If they miss the target set by the stock market, the share price will be punished.

Last Wednesday (April 22nd), Apple reported their Q2 earnings. They managed to increase earnings year on year by an impressive 8.7% despite being in the worst recession since the Great Depression in the 1930’s.

The rise in earnings was due to record sales of the iPod and the iPhone. Sales of the iTouch doubled from last year. Apple sold over 11m iPods and nearly 4m iPhones in the last quarter. Another driver of profits was its App Store which has already hit its initial target of 1bn downloads.

Take a look at the following chart which shows Apple’s sales of its products for the last quarter.